On board the _Scarborough_ a plan had been formed to
take the ship.... This necessarily, on that ship, occasioned much
future circumspection; but Captain Marshall's humanity
considerably lessened the severity which the insurgents might
naturally have expected. On board the other ships the masters, who
had the entire direction of the prisoners, never suffered them to
be at large on deck, and but a few at a time were permitted there.
This consequently gave birth to many diseases. It was said that on
board the _Neptune_ several had died in irons; and what added to
the horror of such a circumstance was that their deaths were
concealed for the purpose of sharing their allowance of provisions
until chance and the offensiveness of a corpse directed a surgeon
or someone who had authority in the ship to the spot where it
lay."
Phillip's commission made him governor-in-chief, and captain-general over
all New South Wales, which then meant from Cape York, in the extreme north
of Australia, to the "south cape of Van Diemen's Land," then, of course,
supposed to be part of the main continent. He was ordered to land at
Botany Bay and there form the settlement, but was given a discretionary
power to change the site, if he considered it unsuitable.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF BOTANY BAY. From an engraving from a drawing by
R.
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